Computer-controlled carving machines, referred to as “CNC routers,” have been commercially available for some time. CNC routers are expensive and large relative to the size of the work piece that they can be employed to shape and rout. CNC routers evolved from heavy-duty, metalworking machine tools that employ flat bed, x, y, z configurations, and commercially available CNC routers have retained this x, y, z configuration. The x, y, z configuration refers to the fact that CNC routers, and the heavy-duty, metalworking machine tools from which they evolved, require a work piece to be statically fixed to a bed within the CNC routers and metalworking machine tools. The CNC routers and metalworking machine tools employ a motor-driven cutting head that can be controlled, by computer, to move in the familiar, orthogonal x, y, and z directions of three-dimensional space. In other words, the work piece remains statically positioned during carving, while the cutting head is positioned via a series of x, y, and z translations to the required positions on the surface of, and within, the work piece. Thus, CNC routers are larger in size than the maximally sized work piece that can be used to carve and shape.
CNC routers suffer from a number of deficiencies, in addition to large physical size relative to the maximally sized work piece on which they can operate. First, the large bed required to support large work pieces adds considerably to the cost of CNC routers. The large bed size also adds considerable weight to the overall weight of CNC routers, since the large bed must be thickly cast or otherwise rigidly constructed to avoid sagging and other shape alterations. CNC routers require stiff and rigid components, because positionally accuracy of the cutting head under computer control is possible only when x, y, and z translations of the cutting head predictably and reliably position the cutting head with respect to the bed, and the work piece affixed to the bed. In general, CNC routers employ non-intuitive, and difficult-to-learn operator interfaces, and programming of CNC routers generally requires considerable training.
CNC routers, despite their disadvantages, have enormous usefulness in wood working and in carving and shaping other rigid and semi-rigid materials. Wood workers, manufacturers, carpenters, artists, hobbyists, and others who carve and shape rigid and semi-rigid materials have thus recognized a need for a cheaper, smaller, lighter, and easier-to-use processor-controlled carving and shaping device.